Free Polish Forces in the Battle of France

Model 15 French Adrian Helmet with the Badge of the Polish Army in exile.

The Polish Independent Highland Rifle Brigade had fought with the Allies during the Norwegian campaign around the port of Narvik. During 1940 the French formed a further four infantry divisions drawn from 35,000 Polish troops who had escaped Poland via Hungary and Rumania and 45,000 conscripts from Polish immigrant communities living in France. Many of these troops were lost in the fruitless fighting in France in June 1940. Only the 4th Division which was barely trained and was not committed to the fighting survived, being evacuated from French ports along the Bay of Biscay as part of Operation Ariel.